When the Wolf was at the Door.
There had been a long stretch of dry weather, and we were cleaning out the waterhole. Dad was down the hole shovelling up the dirt; Joe squatted on the brink catching flies and letting them go again without their wings--a favourite amusement of his; while Dan and Dave cut a drain to turn the water that ran off the ridge into the hole--when it rained. Dad was feeling dry, and told Joe to fetch him a drink.
Joe said: "See first if this cove can fly with only one wing." Then he went, but returned and said: "There's no water in the bucket--Mother used the last drop to boil th' punkins," and renewed the fly-catching. Dad tried to spit, and was going to say something when Mother, half-way between the house and the waterhole, cried out that the grass paddock was all on fire. "So it is, Dad!" said Joe, slowly but surely dragging the head off a fly with finger and thumb.
Dad scrambled out of the hole and looked. "Good God!" was all he said.
How he ran! All of us rushed after him except Joe--he could n't run very well, because the day before he had ridden fifteen miles on a poor horse, bare-back. When near the fire Dad stopped running to break a green bush.
He hit upon a tough one. Dad was in a hurry. The bush was n't. Dad swore and tugged with all his might. Then the bush broke and Dad fell heavily upon his back and swore again.
To save the cockatoo fence that was round the cultivation was what was troubling Dad. Right and left we fought the fire with boughs. Hot! It was hellish hot! Whenever there was a lull in the wind we worked. Like a wind-mill Dad's bough moved--and how he rushed for another when one was used up! Once we had the fire almost under control; but the wind rose again, and away went the flames higher and faster than ever.
"It's no use," said Dad at last, placing his hand on his head, and throwing down his bough. We did the same, then stood and watched the fence go.
After supper we went out again and saw it still burning. Joe asked Dad if he did n't think it was a splendid sight? Dad did n't answer him--he did n't seem conversational that night.
We decided to put the fence up again. Dan had sharpened the axe with a broken file, and he and Dad were about to start when Mother asked them what was to be done about flour? She said she had shaken the bag to get enough to make scones for that morning's breakfast, and unless some was got somewhere there would be no bread for dinner.
Dad reflected, while Dan felt the edge on the axe with his thumb.
Dad said, "Won't Missus Dwyer let you have a dishful until we get some?""No," Mother answered; "I can't ask her until we send back what we owe them."Dad reflected again. "The Andersons, then?" he said.
Mother shook her head and asked what good there was it sending to them when they, only that morning, had sent to her for some?
"Well, we must do the best we can at present," Dad answered, "and I'll go to the store this evening and see what is to be done."Putting the fence up again in the hurry that Dad was in was the very devil! He felled the saplings--and such saplings!--TREES many of them were--while we, "all of a muck of sweat," dragged them into line. Dad worked like a horse himself, and expected us to do the same. "Never mind staring about you," he'd say, if he caught us looking at the sun to see if it were coming dinner-time--"there's no time to lose if we want to get the fence up and a crop in."Dan worked nearly as hard as Dad until he dropped the butt-end of a heavy sapling on his foot, which made him hop about on one leg and say that he was sick and tired of the dashed fence. Then he argued with Dad, and declared that it would be far better to put a wire-fence up at once, and be done with it, instead of wasting time over a thing that would only be burnt down again. "How long," he said, "will it take to get the posts?
Not a week," and he hit the ground disgustedly with a piece of stick he had in his hand.
